Heroes and Villains: Match preview.

Imagine this: 2010. You support a club which has won the European Cup, your team has a wealthy American owner , they are Wembley regulars and are usually in contact with the League leaders, they are managed by one of the best PL managers (O’Neill) and have some decent players in the squad.

Move forward a couple of years to 2012. Suddenly your club is owned by a man whose personal fortune has diminished from 1.5 billion to less than the cost of your new striker. They have taken on a manager from your hated rivals with a football policy that harks back to the ’50’s, your club is over 50 million in debt, and sit 15th in the PL with little hope of improvement.

A Face like the Smell of Gas

Just think …. there are Gooners who think Arsenal have problems!!!

Aston Villa are one of those clubs almost everyone has a soft spot for. A family club with good traditions. Decent ground, decent supporters, no real challenge for The Arsenal (we have lost to them twice since 1999) – what is there not to like? OK, they beat us at The Emirates last season but we were awful that day, with Darren Bent scoring twice in the process of relegating poor Squllaci to the reserves

This season we beat Villa in a tight game with Benayoun scoring in the 87th minute. Can’t see Bennie getting a bench seat today. With the return of our first choice MF’s (bar JW) his days are numbered.

Bennie and Arshavin. Will we see them again

I know many are extolling our fantastic run as a return to the Arsenal of Old but I am yet to be convinced. We were definitely second best at Anfield with the woodwork and Szczesny’s brilliance saving us, and at Goodison we were hardly outstanding. I have said previously the difference is that we are getting the breaks which we certainly didn’t get earlier in the season when we hit the woodwork over and over again, and got beaten by teams who had 2 0r 3 shots on target all game. Luck matters, it is often the difference in a tight game.

My Team:

Having an almost full squad to choose from is a luxury we have not had for some time (1982?). Mr Wenger has options in almost every position which makes guessing the team considerably more difficult. The back 5 pick themselves though I expect to see Santos get some pitch time – he will be important in the run-in. The Gerv/Ox position is difficult. Ox plays deeper and can help the midfield more consistently than Gerv, but Gervinho is better on the break and we can win this game with pace.

Unlike the Everton game I do not expect an 8 man midfield battle. I expect AV to park the bus and look to hit us with the ball over the top to Agbonlahor (Bent is injured). In N’zogbia, Ireland and Petrov they have players who can hurt us with clever through balls.

This week’s Gooner. How about another Old Timer? The writer George Orwell was a Gooner. Born in India he became a fan during the late 1920’s. Orwell then moved to Hampstead and later Kentish Town where he witnessed the great Arsenal team of the 30’s winning absolutely everything. In his Collected Essays he writes of the pride he felt when 7 Arsenal players represented England in a game at Highbury. After WW2, he moved to Canonbury Sq.Islington where he lived until bad health forced him to leave the borough of his beloved team.

Real Man

Another important game today. Whatever the result at the Bridge we have to win. There are tough games ahead and Villa, despite being a decent side, are just the type of team we have to dispatch in what will be a tight contest for the CL places.

No bent, no Dunne, and N’Zogbia only a 50% chance of playing (knee injury)..so who is their biggest threat? id say Ireland, but id also expect for Song to keep him in his pocket..Heskey might try some mumbo-jumbo but under McLeish he looks another has been..

it looks really good for us but there should be no room for complacency..if we go out playing our game, we should be too strong, especially with our new found 12th man..

Not sure if its a good thing for our players to know opposition results before our game but who knows, it might just push us to another higher level of confidence…

Nice one BR informative and great fun as always. I wonder what part McLeish would play in Animal Farm, after all Orwell did say ” Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words: it is war minus the shooting. ” Sounds a bit like our Alex’s methods dont you think

it’s weird how far villa have fallen, used to be my second team after arsenal before mcleish ruined them. And that’s a good shout about luck, used to be we’d destroy teams possession-wise and then wasteful finishing and a quick counter would undo us, nice to see us doing that to other teams on occasion now (such as liverpool).

Not obvious to me GN5
JD’s having a solid game and the myth of Ramsey slowing the play down is just that – a myth.
Our most fluid spells against Everton all involved Ramsey bursting forward and there have been plenty of games where we have not been fluid but where Ramsey was not playing (eg Liverpool away).

two englishman score in the same game for arsenal for the first time since 1997..but the third by our panic buy spaniard…what a goal…absolutely gorgeous..well done boys, well done to our fans at the grove and

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Off subject….. A year ago we got done by Wigan overturning a 2 goal lead in the last 1/4 of the game and all hell broke loose, every pundit, “Expert” and disenchanted fan took to the airwaves on Talk Porkies and the like, crucifying the club, the team and the manager.
QPR did the same to the Pool last week, have you heard calls for Kenny Ds incompetent head. I haven’t, wonder why? They have lost at home today let’s see what happens
Last Wednesday about 4 o’clock there was a madman on talk’s cheap, ranting that Arsenal didn’t deserve CL football shouldn’t be allowed in because we don’t try to win it, as evidenced by our lack of transfer spend. Chelsea and the spuds at least give it a shot. You couldn’t make it up. Even Goughie sound incredulous.

at the start of the season, my youngest brother (a pool supporter) told me that the best thing for Arsenal would be to cut our losses and get rid of wenger, spend shit loads of money and start fresh just like them..

im still waiting on those dinner reservations he promised a couple of months ago..so i sent him a text asking if he maybe lost his appetite? :-)

Song had a good game also and controlled the game from start to finish.

Didn’t really find out anything new about any of our lads today due to Villa not really testing us, but you can only beat what’s in front of you and I liked the way the team went about their business. Too many times in recent years we have failed to capitalise on other teams poor results, but that was never a problem today.

8 points clear of Chelsea with 7 extra GD, 3 clear of Spuds with 4 extra GD. I would’ve taken that at the beginning of the season. Onwards and upwards.

This may sound awful, but the Muamba tragedy could be the thing that keeps them in the PL. they will be fighting tooth and nail for the lad on the pitch and I hope they stay up. Coyle has shown what a good guy he is and I like the way they play. Also sounds like Ryo is playing well at the moment.

What a load of rubbish! If that had been Liverpool playing Villa, they would have won by at least 6:0.

No wait — that’s bollix — I was trying out being negative, and it’s like acid on my Arsenal soul!!!!!!!!! :-( Those binners would have lost 0:4!!! :-)

Brilliant, brilliant game!! Just to make my view clear — Djourou was excellent, especially in the air. Rambo was fine. He will score with one of those shots soon and then we will have loads of goals from a very good player. Rosicky is special – what style!! What’s not to like? :-)

Loved the game — everyone gets a 10 from me, but Theo’s goal was exquisite, and Artettetttaaa’s free kick was suuuuperb!

7th heaven. Great peformace and if you listened to AW he said he purposely made the three subs as he has to rotate as some of the players were still pretty tired after the Everton Game.

Another assist by the much maligned Song, and Theo took it superbly.

Villa are a poor side,especially with Dunne out and we fans are strange lot. 6 weeks ago many thought we would finish mid table now when we are 2-0 up and cruising they want another 4 goals.

Ireland was lucky with that tackle on the OX, but having already been booked, i reckon the ref gave him the benefit of the doubt and therefore no penalty.
I loved arteta’s bullet lke fre kick, would love to see more shooting from distance.
All i will say about Santos is that he has been out for a long time and is ring rusty.

I reckon this team could easily improve by 20% and then everyone watch out.
By the way what happened to kos ?.

Djorou’s best game this season but overall a good competent performance by all.

Raddy that’s defeatist talk, don’t we still have 24 points to play for? :)

Ok maybe not this season but I do hope people shut up about spending money this summer, this squad without Wilshere, Arshavin, Diaby….the only reasons players will leave in future is lack of opportunities, the last time that happened we were invincible.

Can’t help thinking about one of those staring dogs one of you were on about. We are on the train sitting opposite a muderer and just because we cant stop glaring at the worst comb over we’ve ever seen, he’s getting off the train wherever we do and it will be dark and deserted. Hey ho
Arteta is a rocket shotter according.to my son

My thoughts at the moment are a combination of excitement and anticipation.

This pool of players is growing faster than i thought. Next season i expected them to fight for the title, now i expect them to win it. With every pasing month this squad grows in maturity, togetherness, and quality. For now, we must concern ourselves with lesser clubs like Totnumb and Chelsea, but next year we will have bigger fish to fry. Our battles ahead will be with Fergusons Utd and Ponceinis City and it will become tense and heated…..i cant wait.

Home now.
What a strike. Thanks for vid Chas, andgreat to see you and your gang. That goal was right in front of us, but the Song ball for Theo’s finish was at the other end and I cannot wait to see that again tomorrow morning.

Hi Rocky,
Loved it. We’ve been home ten minutes and he’s sparko. Chas very kindly gave him a mountain of Arsenal stuff which we waded through on the journey back. A superb Arsenal day. He will sleep happy and so will I.
Really nite now.

Lastly,
The atmosphere was fantastic. Hope it came across on the tv. I have a feeling our poor start to the season may have weeded out some of the whingers, while the second half of season fight back has really created a sense of togetherness. Dunno, but it gets better and better.
Really really nite.
Nite.

Just because they got a point at the Chavs in a piss-poor game they seem to think third place is in the bag (their reasoning is that they have an easy run-in, while we still have the Chavs, Shitty and the Orcs).

They have also convinced themselves that they put in a great performance today. I watched the match and they where rotten. As were the Chavs, admittedly.

They’re already giving it the big talk again.

So funny.

We’ve got to stay ahead of them, because if we do, this year’s will be the best St Totteringham’s Day ever.

Wenger on Mikel Arteta’s free-kick, reportedly…
I prefer it when he takes free-kicks with his laces because he has short feet. Usually the guys who have good insight have bigger, longer feet, and when a guy has short feet like that they are very talented at hitting the ball with their laces. The ball floats a little bit when they take it and I think he is more built to hit the free-kicks like that.

What I really liked about it was that it was a traditional pile driver both feet off floor when striking which allows that extra power. The ball stayed set in flight too no spin at all.

I know Given was probably slightly culpable for Gibbs goal but if Villa go down I would like to see him come to Arsenal as no 2, I think it’s one or two years too early for him unfortunately in terms of taking it easier in old age.

Morning all,
Just watched MOTD. That was some ball from Song and a superb finish from Theo. Best goal so far this season, or would that have been the Song pass to the Robin finish against Everton?
I see a familiar pattern :-)